Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Main Page: Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Wallace of Saltaire's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of additional public employees needed to meet the requirements of Brexit, in particular in customs and border control.
My Lords, the White Paper published last week set out the Government’s priorities and the broad strategy for exiting the EU. There is a number of options as to how EU migration and customs checks might work once we have exited the EU. We are considering these options, so it would be wrong to set out a further position at this stage.
My Lords, half of Britain’s trade is currently within the single market, so presumably customs checks and the space needed for them will have to be considerably expanded. Two-thirds of visitors come from the EU and the EEA, so I assume that the long queues that we already have at the external border for people going through hard border controls will be immensely lengthened and that we will need to treble the number of border staff. Are the Government already beginning to plan for the extra space and staff they need? If they cannot recruit enough, perhaps we will need to recruit border agency people from eastern Europe.
My Lords, the Government will certainly be prepared, if need be, in the way that the noble Lord said. However, the advent of e-passport gates at airports has made it quicker to get through the border, and of course the facial recognition checks at those gates have proved to be very efficient.